Threats and knowledge gaps for ecosystem services provided by kelp forests: a northeast Atlantic perspective.

Kelp forests along temperate and polar coastlines represent some of most diverse and productive habitats on the Earth. Here, we synthesize information from >60 years of research on the structure and functioning of kelp forest habitats in European waters, with particular emphasis on the coasts of UK and Ireland, which represents an important biogeographic transition zone that is subjected to multiple threats and stressors. We collated existing data on kelp distribution and abundance and reanalyzed these data to describe the structure of kelp forests along a spatial gradient spanning more than 10° of latitude. We then examined ecological goods and services provided by kelp forests, including elevated secondary production, nutrient cycling, energy capture and flow, coastal defense, direct applications, and biodiversity repositories, before discussing current and future threats posed to kelp forests and identifying key knowledge gaps. Recent evidence unequivocally demonstrates that the structure of kelp forests in the NE Atlantic is changing in response to climate- and non-climate-related stressors, which will have major implications for the structure and functioning of coastal ecosystems. However, kelp-dominated habitats along much of the NE Atlantic coastline have been chronically understudied over recent decades in comparison with other regions such as Australasia and North America. The paucity of field-based research currently impedes our ability to conserve and manage these important ecosystems. Targeted observational and experimental research conducted over large spatial and temporal scales is urgently needed to address these knowledge gaps.

'Trusting the numbers': mineral prospecting, raising finance and the governance of knowledge

Mineral prospecting and raising finance for ‘junior’ mining firms has historically been regarded as a speculative activity. For the regulators of securities markets upon which ‘junior’ mining companies seek to raise capital, a perennial problem has been handling not only the indeterminacy of scientific claims, but also the social basis of epistemic practices. This paper examines the production of a system of public warrant and associated knowledge practices intended to enable investors to differentiate between ‘destructive’ and ‘productive’ varieties of financial speculation. It traces the use of the notion of ‘disclosure’ in constructing and legitimizing the ‘juniors’ market in Canada. It argues that though the work of ‘economics’ may be necessary in the construction of markets, it is by no means sufficient. Attention must also be given to the ways in which legal models of ‘the free-market’ can be translated and constantly re-worked across the sites and spaces of regulatory practice, animating the geographies of markets.

Co-Creating Knowledge Online: Approaches for Community Artists

Forming peer alliances to share and build knowledge is an important aspect of community arts practice, and these co-creation processes are increasingly being mediated by the internet. This paper offers guidance for practitioners who are interested in better utilising the internet to connect, share, and make new knowledge. It argues that new approaches are required to foster the organising activities that underpin online co-creation, building from the premise that people have become increasingly networked as individuals rather than in groups (Rainie and Wellman 2012: 6), and that these new ways of connecting enable new modes of peer-to-peer production and exchange. This position advocates that practitioners move beyond situating the internet as a platform for dissemination and a tool for co-creating media, to embrace its knowledge collaboration potential.

Drawing on a design experiment I developed to promote online knowledge co-creation, this paper suggests three development phases – developing connections, developing ideas, and developing agility – to ground six methods. They are: switching and routing, engaging in small trades of ideas with networked individuals; organising, co-ordinating networked individuals and their data; beta-release, offering ‘beta’ artifacts as knowledge trades; beta-testing, trialing and modifying other peoples ‘beta’ ideas; adapting, responding to technological disruption; and, reconfiguring, embracing opportunities offered by technological disruption. These approaches position knowledge co-creation as another capability of the community artist, along with co-creating art and media.

Global Production, CSR and Human Rights: The Courts of Public Opinion and the Social License to Operate

This paper takes at its starting point the responsibility placed upon corporations by the United Nations’ Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework as elaborated upon by the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to respect human rights. The overt pragmatism and knowledge of the complex business relationships that are embedded in global production led John Ruggie, the author of the Framework, to adopt a structure for the relationship between human rights and business that built on the existing practices of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). His intention was that these practices should be developed to embrace respect for human rights by exhorting corporations to move from “the era of declaratory CSR” to showing a demonstrable policy commitment to respect for human rights. The prime motivation for corporations to do this was, according to Ruggie, because the responsibility to respect was one that would be guarded and judged by the “courts of public opinion” as part of the social expectations imposed upon corporations or to put it another way as a condition of a corporation’s social license to operate.
This article sets out the background context to the Framework and examines the structures that it puts forward. In its third and final section the article looks at how the Framework requires a corporation’s social license to be assembled and how and by whom that social license will be judged. The success or failure of the Framework in persuading corporations to respect human rights is tied to whether “the courts of public opinion” can use their “naming and shaming power” effectively.

Mining Money: the generative capacities of scientific and legal knowledge practices in the making of resource economies

In 1997 a scandal associated with Bre-X, a junior mining firm, and its prospecting activities in Indonesia, exposed to public scrutiny the ways in which mineral exploration firms acquire, assess and report on scientific claims about the natural environment. At stake here was not just how investors understood the provisional nature of scientific knowledge, but also evidence of fraud. Contemporaneous mining scandals not only included the salting of cores, but also unreliable proprietary sample preparation and assay methods, mis-representations of visual field estimates as drilling results and ‘overly optimistic’ geological reports. This paper reports on initiatives taken in the wake of these scandals and prompted by the Mining Standards Task Force (TSE/OSC 1999). For regulators, mandated to increase investor confidence in Canada’s leading role within the global mining industry, efforts focused first and foremost upon identifying and removing sources of error and wilfulness within the production and circulation of scientific knowledge claims. A common goal cross-cutting these initiatives was ‘a faithful representation of nature’ (Daston and Galison 2010), however, as the paper argues, this was manifest in an assemblage of practices governed by distinct and rival regulative visions of science and the making of markets in claims about ‘nature’. These ‘practices of fidelity’, it is argued, can be consequential in shaping the spatial and temporal dynamics of the marketization of nature.

Fish product mislabelling: failings of traceability in the production chain and implications for illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing

Increasing consumer demand for seafood, combined with concern over the health of our oceans, has led to many initiatives aimed at tackling destructive fishing practices and promoting the sustainability of fisheries. An important global threat to sustainable fisheries is Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, and there is now an increased emphasis on the use of trade measures to prevent IUU-sourced fish and fish products from entering the international market. Initiatives encompass new legislation in the European Union requiring the inclusion of species names on catch labels throughout the distribution chain. Such certification measures do not, however, guarantee accuracy of species designation. Using two DNA-based methods to compare species descriptions with molecular ID, we examined 386 samples of white fish, or products labelled as primarily containing white fish, from major UK supermarket chains. Species specific real-time PCR probes were used for cod (Gadus morhua) and haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) to provide a highly sensitive and species-specific test for the major species of white fish sold in the UK. Additionally, fish-specific primers were used to sequence the forensically validated barcoding gene, mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI). Overall levels of congruence between product label and genetic species identification were high, with 94.34% of samples correctly labelled, though a significant proportion in terms of potential volume, were mislabelled. Substitution was usually for a cheaper alternative and, in one case, extended to a tropical species. To our knowledge, this is the first published study encompassing a large-scale assessment of UK retailers, and if representative, indicates a potentially significant incidence of incorrect product designation.

A review of the welfare of dairy cows in continuously housed and pasture-based production systems.

There is increasing interest in the use of continuous housing systems for dairy cows, with various reasons put forward to advocate such systems. However, the welfare of dairy cows is typically perceived to be better within pasture-based systems, although such judgements are often not scientifically based. The aim of this review was to interrogate the existing scientific literature to compare the welfare, including health, of dairy cows in continuously housed and pasture-based systems. While summarising existing work, knowledge gaps and directions for future research are also identified. The scope of the review is broad, examining relevant topics under three main headings; health, behaviour, and physiology. Regarding health, cows on pasture-based systems had lower levels of lameness, hoof pathologies, hock lesions, mastitis, uterine disease, and mortality compared to cows on continuously housed systems. Pasture access also had benefits for dairy cow behaviour, in terms of grazing, improved lying / resting times, and lower levels of aggression. Moreover, when given the choice between pasture and indoor housing, cows showed an overall preference for pasture, particularly at night. However, the review highlighted the need for a deeper understanding of cow preference and behaviour. Potential areas for concern within pasture-based systems included physiological indicators of more severe negative energy balance, and in some situations, the potential for compromised welfare with exposure to unpredictable weather conditions. In summary, the results from this review highlight that there remain considerable animal welfare benefits from incorporating pasture access into dairy production systems.